


‘cause a cat’s the only cat (who knows where it’s at)

by boasamishipper



Series: and i think it's gonna be a long, long time [8]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Top Gun (1986)
Genre: Aliens, Babysitting, Cats, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24889447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boasamishipper/pseuds/boasamishipper
Summary: “So you mean to tell me,” Ice says, “that my alien cat is having alien kittens?”
Relationships: Tom "Iceman" Kazansky/Pete "Maverick" Mitchell
Series: and i think it's gonna be a long, long time [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1460746
Comments: 10
Kudos: 51





	‘cause a cat’s the only cat (who knows where it’s at)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thecarlysutra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecarlysutra/gifts).



As soon as he gets back from France, Maverick heads home. Well, not home, exactly, but to his house, so he can change and grab an overnight bag before heading to Ice’s for the weekend. He’s been back on Earth for almost a year now, and he’s finally gotten the hang of balancing his work at TOPGUN, his promise to Fury and SHIELD, and his life with Ice. Sure, it’s a little weird to be on Earth and  _ not  _ be with Ice all the time (not bad, just weird), and it’s definitely weird to only fly in a plane and not by himself (at least when he isn’t on SHIELD missions), and he misses Talos and the rest of the Skrull, but it’s good to be back. He wouldn’t trade waking up next to Ice in the morning and knowing he doesn’t have to leave for eight months straight for anything.

His communicator buzzes in his pocket just as he’s walking out the door, and he glances at it automatically. Usually Talos or Fury are the only ones to contact him through the communicator, but the screen says  _ Ice <3\.  _ Frowning, he swipes the screen to reveal the message:  _ MAV I NEED YOU GET OVER HERE NOW. _

A flush so hot it’s bordering on painful crawls up his neck and spreads across his entire body, and for at least five seconds he can’t take in a proper breath. Ice usually isn’t this forward, not over the communicator (unless they’re having hologram sex, which —  _ Jesus) _ . He reads the message again, imagines Ice’s low, smooth voice saying it right in his ear, and the heat tears through him like a supernova, hot enough to make his toes curl. 

_ B thre soon bye _ is what he types back, and then just forgoes his bike entirely: it’s late and he can fly faster than he can drive. 

Two minutes later, he’s on Ice’s doorstep. The door’s ajar and he drops his overnight bag in the foyer, right on top of the blue fuzzy rug that Chewie loves and Maverick hates, and makes a beeline for the kitchen, where Ice is standing facing away from him. “Hey, Kazansky,” he murmurs, and wraps his arms around Ice, leaning on his tiptoes to kiss Ice on the back of his neck.

Or he tries, anyway. The second he speaks, Ice jumps about a foot in the air and whirls around to grab Maverick by the wrist before Maverick can touch him, hard enough that it almost hurts. Maverick yanks back his hand and stares at Ice, incredulous in the face of his apologies.

“What the  _ hell, _ Ice?”

“Sorry.” Ice runs his hands through his hair, and Maverick suddenly notices that Ice looks worried, not aroused. Huh. “You scared me, that’s all. Sorry.”

“So that message wasn’t a come-on?” Maverick says stupidly. Ice’s glare could melt paint. “Not that I wouldn’t have come just as fast if it wasn’t, which…it wasn’t. Um.”

“Um is right,” Ice says, looking somewhere between pissed off and like he’s really, really trying not to laugh. “Do you maybe want to direct your attention to that half of the room?”

Maverick’s heart seizes, and his hands light up with energy. “What? What’s the matter?”

“Mav,” Ice says, and Maverick follows his gaze down to Chewie’s bed at the foot of the dining table. She’s sleeping now, her body wrapped around four pink glowing objects the size and shape of footballs. “What the hell are those?”

Maverick opens his mouth, closes it. The energy flickers out.

Five minutes later, he’s on the comms with Talos, who thankfully is still awake due to the latest upgrade to the Skrullos II border field he’s working on. Luckily Skrull don’t believe in exchanging pleasantries — most of them, anyway, since Niamh is actually really good at small talk — because Talos cuts right to the chase.  _ “What can I help you with, Maverick?” _

“Uh,” Maverick says eloquently. “Well. We think something’s up with Chewie.”

_ “Why? What’s wrong with her?” _

“Uh, nothing. She seems fine. But Ice just found her on her bed, nuzzling these…pink gooey football-shaped things—”

_ “How many of them are there?” _

Maverick stops. “What?”

_ “How many of them are there? The objects.” _

Ice looks like he’s going to have a coronary. “What the hell do you mean how many? Does that matter?”

_ “Yes, it does. How many are there?” _

They both look down again, as if expecting the number to have changed in the time it took them to contact Talos. “Four.”

_ “Oh, good,” _ Talos says, relieved.  _ “When Flerkens are pregnant they can lay up to a hundred and seventeen eggs. Four is very good. Very manageable.” _

Ice’s face goes from ghost white to fire engine red to faintly green in the span of five seconds, and he sits down hard in the nearest chair. Maverick’s ears are ringing. He must have misheard. “She’s…she’s  _ pregnant?” _

_ “Yep.” _

“But…but she’s…how?”

_ “Flerkens reproduce asexually, Maverick. She can have kittens anytime she wants to. Usually the females do it when they’re a thousand years old, though; you know, once they’ve settled down. Chewie’s a couple decades shy of a millennium, so I guess she’s an early bloomer.” _

Now Maverick feels like he’s going to have a coronary. “Jesus Christ.”

“So you mean to tell me,” Ice says, “that my alien cat is having alien kittens?”

_ “Yep.” _

“Great,” Ice says weakly. “Thanks. Just making sure.”

There’s rapid beeping on Talos’s end, and Talos curses.  _ “Krath-la, that’s my cue to end the call. Listen, Maverick, give me a call once the eggs look redder and more solid. From what I remember that’s when they’re supposed to hatch. That’ll be in around five to seven days.” _

“I’m sorry, what,” Maverick says. Ice makes a strangled choking noise. “In how many days?”

_ “Five to seven days, maybe a little less depending on how solid the eggs are now. I’ve got to go, I’ll call you back later.” _

The dial tone drones. Maverick has just enough presence of mind remaining to switch off the comms before he falls into the chair right next to Ice, who’s staring at the floor like the answers to his problems are etched in the tiles. “Chewie’s having kittens,” he says.

“I heard.” Ice still looks lost in his thoughts, and Maverick reaches over and taps him on the knee. “Hey. You know what this means?”

Ice looks up. “What?”

“We’re going to be grandparents.”

They both glance over at Chewie, who twitches in her sleep. Her tail wraps around the egg closest to her, which glows a little brighter. “God help us,” Ice says.

Maverick privately agrees.

* * *

Maverick has no idea what to expect when the eggs will hatch — he’s seen clips of bird eggs hatching from nature documentaries that he’d vaguely paid attention to, but Chewie’s a Flerken, not a bird. She’s not even a real cat. And if there’s one thing he understands about Flerkens, it’s that they’re completely un-understandable.

For example, once the eggs are as red as the stripes on his Commander Marvel jumpsuit and solid as a rock, they don’t crumble apart, they start to actually melt into an acrid-smelling goo, right on Chewie’s bed. Then Chewie prowls around the melting eggs for an hour, meowing something in Flerkenese that makes the gooey mess glow an even brighter red. When they hatch, the babies turn out to have fur coats as orange as their mother, but they have tiny antennae on their heads: thin, fuzzy brown stems, with tiny green balls on top, just like the aliens from sci-fi B-movies. Talos swears they’ll fall off with time, like baby teeth, which is good, because otherwise they’ll never be allowed to leave the house. The only normal thing about the whole process is the end, when the four baby Flerkens nuzzle up to Chewie and suckle from her teats, their tails twitching happily. Maverick might cry.

_ “They look healthy,”  _ Talos comments from where he’s watching the process on the holocomms. Niamh, Soren, and Gynara are all cooing over the babies, but Maverick’s pretty sure they’re happy to be far, far away from all the Flerkens.  _ “Good job, you two.” _

“We didn’t really do anything,” Ice says with a tired laugh, “but thanks, Talos.”

Maverick watches as one of the baby Flerkens untangles herself from Chewie and her siblings and unsteadily toddles over to one of the toy mouses scattered on the floor. She lies down across from it, meowing with her head cocked to the side.

“Aww,” he says. “You want to play with it?” He crouches next to her and pushes the toy a little closer, smiling when she sniffs at it curiously. “This one can be yours, if you want. Me and Grandpa Ice will buy you all the little mouses in the world. What do you think about that?”

In response, the baby Flerken sneezes, and the toy mouse sets on fire. 

Maverick’s jaw drops.

The baby Flerken meows, delighted, and opens her mouth. A set of pinkish tentacles shoot out at the mouse, wrap around it, and retract back into her mouth, leaving nothing but a scorch mark on the tiles. She cocks her head to the other side, staring up at Maverick.

Gynara goes laurel green. Niamh and Soren exchange bewildered looks. Ice swears. Talos just says, “Huh,” very quietly. Chewie looks pleased.

“Well,” Maverick says. “We’re fucked.”

* * *

“Mav.”

“I know.”

_ “Mav.” _

“Ice,  _ I know.” _

Ice groans like he’s been punched and leans against the kitchen counter, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. The floor is now covered in scorch marks, some larger and more ominous-looking than others, and greenish bubbling goo. The toys are half-melted and entirely destroyed, as are one cabinet door, the place mats on the table, and one of Ice’s shoes. Chewie sends Maverick a look like  _ what are you gonna do  _ as Clementine, Jonesy, Spot, and Neutron meow their way over to Ice and Maverick, purring and happily nuzzling their legs — apparently blissfully unaware their grandfathers are on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“Maybe we can just keep them outside,” Maverick suggests, and Ice scoffs, not looking up.

“Yeah? And have the neighbors call the police because the kittens blew up the backyard?”

“Ah,” Maverick says, definitely not wanting to be on the receiving end of that conversation. “Yeah, probably not the best plan.” He sits down cross-legged beside Jonesy, scratching her on the head. In seconds his lap is full of purring baby Flerkens. Clem starts nibbling at Maverick’s knee, so he holds out his hands and shoots tiny balls of brightly colored light across the room. The kittens chase after them. “Look, it’s only been a week. They’re still babies. Maybe it’ll get better.”

* * *

It does not get better.

* * *

“Neutron,” Maverick says. “If you give us our keys back, we’ll buy you a toy when we get back from work. A nice mouse, just for you.”

Neutron tilts his head to the side, considering.

_ “Two _ mouses,” Maverick wheedles. “The best mouses ever.”

“It’s  _ mice, _ Maverick, not mouses.”

“Do you want to focus on teaching our grandkittens grammar or manners, Kazansky?”

“I’m staying quiet.”

“Come on, buddy,” Maverick says. “Please, pretty please?”

Neutron sighs like he’s being completely inconvenienced, but finally spits out Maverick and Ice’s keys into Maverick’s palm.

“Thank you,” Maverick says. Ice silently accepts his keys and wipes them on the front of his shirt. “Have a good day, you guys.”

* * *

“You are killing me,” Ice says to Spot. Maverick contemplates grandkitten-cide. “You are killing your poor grandfather, do you know that?”

Spot’s antennae droop, but he doesn’t look very sorry.

“Spit it out. Now.”

Spot pouts. Then he backs away from Ice and Maverick and begins to cough, then to gag, and then to spit. He thrusts his head forward a couple times like a pecking chicken, makes one last, repulsive retching sound, and spits out a very soggy, slimy couch, along with one of the books on the coffee table and the telephone. 

“Uh,” Ice says. Jonesy meows, clearly impressed. Preening, Spot meows back and goes over to lay with his mother. “Thanks, little buddy. Good job.”

Maverick leaves the room and does not come back for thirty minutes.

* * *

There’s noise coming from down the hall again.

A low groan drags itself from Maverick’s throat. He turns onto his stomach, pulling the covers up over his head, and tries to burrow in as deeply as possible into Ice’s embrace. Not again. He thought he was an expert on being tired by now, but the days of twelve hour stakeouts in space are nothing compared to the utter exhaustion of getting out of bed eight times a night to keep four baby Flerkens from burning down the house. And Talos claims that Flerkens are nocturnal for the first few months of their lives, so this is not going away anytime soon.

But Christ and God and the devil help him, he is  _ not  _ getting out of this bed again.

“Ice.” He nudges Ice’s knee with his own. “Hey. S’your turn.”

Ice’s groan is nothing short of agonized. “No. Not again.” An arm slings around Maverick’s waist, pulling him closer. “Just a dream. Gotta be.”

“It’s not.”

“...It could be.”

There’s a loud crashing noise, followed by some hushed meows. Chewie can only do so much; she’s with the kittens all day, and she needs her rest. God help them.  _ “Ice.” _

“I know.” Ice sounds like he wants to cry, or pass out, or both. “I can’t move. My body…won’t do it.”

“Neither will mine.”

They both slump back into the mattress, defeated. There’s another crashing noise, probably from the trash can tipping over, and then the smoke alarm goes off. Maverick seriously contemplates dragging Ice to his place instead so they can get a full night’s sleep for once. 

The baby Flerkens…they just don’t fucking sleep. They just don’t.

“You do it this time,” Maverick tries, “and I’ll blow you when you get back.”

“Not even God could get my dick up at this point, Mav.”

“Harsh.” Not that Maverick can really retaliate. They tried to have sex the night before to blow off steam and ended up passing out on top of each other. Neither of them have slept through the night in five weeks, and it’s starting to affect their work, and the way they fly. Even the most mediocre pilots in their session have gotten a radar lock on them at least twice at this point. 

And there’s nothing they can do, because the Flerkens won’t sleep when they sleep and now something in the house just broke or got eaten or blown up  _ again. _

“Please,” Ice mumbles into Maverick’s hair. “Please just do this for me, and I’ll…I’ll do something. I don’t know. I’ll throw out that rug you hate. I’ll make your favorite dinner. I’ll get them all night tomorrow, I swear, Mav, just  _ please…” _

Begging is a low blow, but it works. Maverick just can’t stand to hear Ice like that. With one awful, deep-from-his-soul groan, he heaves himself over the side of the bed and to his feet.

Only to promptly fall back down again.

“You got this,” Ice urges. He’s got Maverick’s pillow over his head now. “You got this, baby. Keep…keep trying. I believe in you.”

“My legs aren’t fucking working.” Maverick tries to smack feeling into them, which works for a couple of seconds. It’s four am now. Maybe he can make himself some coffee and watch the Flerkens until morning, give Ice some decent sleep. Maybe he’ll just die first. He heaves another sigh, and heaves himself back up. “Okay. Here I go.”

Ice is snoring before Maverick even makes it out the door.

* * *

_ You have to go easy on them,  _ Chewie tells her children at the end of the day. Her humans are passed out on the couch together while the television quietly drones on; they need the sleep. They’ll take their turn later.  _ Remember, they’re still babies, and they’re very fragile; they don’t even have their own tentacles, you know. _

Neutron mews, scandalized.  _ They don’t? _

Clem looks aghast.  _ When they gonna get them, Mamma? _

_ Not ever,  _ Chewie tells them. Now all of her children look scandalized, and send their humans pitying looks.  _ So remember, take it easy on them. I know you need to chew and regurgitate things to help train your stomachs, but try not to eat their things unless you really have to. It makes them upset. _

_ But Grandmav’s shoes taste the bestest,  _ Jonesy complains. 

_ Yeah,  _ Spot says,  _ and I still haven’t tried to eat their human food… _

_ No human food,  _ Chewie says sharply.  _ Not until you’re older. _

Spot pouts.  _ But Mamma… _

_ No buts. Now be good little Flerkens for me and your humans, okay? No throwing up acid, no setting things on fire, and if you eat something, make sure you spit it up again. Got it? _

Her children sigh.  _ Fine…  _

* * *

The kittens are slightly better as the second month of their lives comes to an end. Maverick and Ice both sleep at least three hours a night, and when Ice leaves to go to the grocery store and Maverick takes the kittens outside for some fresh air, only the patio furniture is eaten (and then quickly regurgitated, following a glare from Chewie in Neutron and Spot’s direction). With luck, Maverick thinks, the worst is over.

And then, just as suddenly, it isn’t.

The last day of the session is his and Ice’s anniversary, so Maverick decides to do something special. He has a word with Chewie to keep the babies occupied for the evening — “Please Chewie, I’ll play the lights game with them all night, I promise.” — and decides to order takeout from Ice’s favorite place, buy flowers, the whole nine yards. He gets the kitchen all set up and fancy for dinner while Ice stays late at graduation, and by the time he’s done, he’s feeling pretty good about himself.

Then Clem coughs.

Dread is not a strong enough word for what courses through him, but he does his best to tamp it down. It’s probably nothing. Even Flerkens are allowed to cough. “Hey,” he says. “What’s the matter, Clem? Frog in your throat?”

Clem coughs again, this time almost violently. She starts to shake, and Maverick’s dread grows. Can he do the Heimlich maneuver for an alien kitten? She’s barely half the length of his arm; how is he going to pull it off?

“What’s the matter? Are you okay?”

Clem’s eyes are streaming. Then she makes a long, ugly retching noise, and coughs up a human being.

Maverick screams.

“Oh God,” the person moans. He’s paler than a ghost and slimy from head to toe; his eyebrows and parts of his hair have been singed off. He’s wearing torn jeans and a black sweatshirt, and he’s got a crowbar clenched tightly in one fist. It doesn’t take a genius to put the pieces together. “What the fuck. What happened?”

“Jesus shit,” Ice says faintly. Maverick whirls around; he hadn’t even noticed Ice was home. Ice looks as bad as Maverick feels: that is to say, like he’s going to pass out. “Clem, what the  _ fuck?” _

Clem just meows.

“Clementine Mitchell-Kazansky,” Maverick says. “Please, please tell me you didn’t eat a burglar.”

Clem stares at Maverick like he’s an idiot. Chewie, from where she’s corralling the others, looks like she wants to facepalm.

“Were you trying to rob my house?” Ice is demanding of the man on their floor, who is gingerly sitting up and scooting as far away from the kittens as possible.

“Uh, yeah, sorry about that,” the man says. “But I think there’s a more important question to be asked here, like, oh I dunno —  _ how in the shit did I get eaten by a fucking kitten?” _

“She’s got some behavior problems,” Maverick says.

_ “She fucking ate me!” _

“Get the hell out of my house,” Ice says. He’s got his head in his hands and looks like he’s not going to look up again any time soon. “And don’t say a word about this to anyone, or I will make her eat you again and this time you’ll come out the other end.”

Clem meows, as if to back up the claim. The burglar flees faster than Maverick can blink.

“Happy anniversary,” Maverick tries.

Ice goes to the bedroom to lie down.

* * *

_ “What do you mean you can’t come to Bulgaria?”  _ Fury snaps.  _ “You’re on contract, Maverick. You can’t just say no to the Council.” _

Maverick pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s not that I don’t want to go, man, it’s that I _can’t._ Can’t you get someone else for the mission, just this once?”

_ “No, I damn well can’t. That’s the whole point of you working for SHIELD, Maverick: you do the impossible missions, and they do all the paperwork that keeps you legally alive. Get your ass to DC ASAP.” _

“Fury,” Ice says, with the dangerous voice of the permanently exhausted. “If you make Maverick leave me alone with the Flerkens for a week, I will kill everyone on the Council and then myself.”

“I’m not going to leave you here,” Maverick says to Ice, who mutters something like  _ you better fucking not. _ “Not unless our grandkittens are taken care of first.”

Fury swears.  _ “How long until they stop being so...Flerken-y?” _

They both glance over at the kittens, who are playing Who Can Swallow Ice’s Stuff and Then Spit It Out The Fastest. So far Jonesy is winning, with Chewie watching over her kids to make sure they don’t choke. “A long time,” Maverick says. “Til they’re at least six months old, Talos said. Then they start to get the hang of being Flerken-y and calm down.”

_ “We don’t have that kind of time, not if you want to keep working for SHIELD,”  _ Fury says.  _ “We gotta find a way to get them taken care of.” _

“What are we supposed to do?” Ice says bitterly. “Hire a cat sitter?”

“Maybe you can detach some SHIELD agents to help us babysit,” Maverick says, only half joking.

_ “What makes you think I can help you guys?”  _ Fury’s hologram gestures at his face. _ “If you recall, Flerkens and I don’t exactly have the best history.” _

“Fury,” Ice says. “Remember how Chewie scratched your eye out and you told everyone you lost it in the line of duty? It’d be a shame if someone were to tell every SHIELD agent that. Wouldn’t it.”

Fury looks mildly unnerved.  _ “Maverick, save me from your scary boyfriend.” _

“Fury,” Maverick says wearily, “if you don’t help us, not even God can save you.”

Fury is quiet for a while.  _ “Alright,”  _ he says at last.  _ “Stay home this week; I’ll head off the Council. Just this once. And I’ll see what I can do.” _

* * *

Natasha Romanoff waits.

She’s good at that by now. Half of being the Black Widow is just waiting: waiting for the mark, waiting to make the right move, waiting for the right time to leave the body cooling on the floor and disappear into the shadows. It’s about half the battle of being a SHIELD agent as well, even if the aftermath of waiting — after capturing the target instead of killing them — makes her feel slightly more free. She might be a bullet in the gun that is the Council, but at least her ledger isn’t getting any redder. Not anymore.

Still. When Coulson said Fury wanted to see her as soon as she and Clint got back from Bulgaria, she hadn’t expected to spend the first three minutes of their meeting in a staring contest.

“Romanoff,” Fury says. His one eye carries a heavy weight in its gaze, and she straightens in her chair, almost imperceptibly. “Reports on your training so far have been positive. And Coulson said you and Barton did well on the mission in Bulgaria.”

“We did,” Natasha says. It’s not arrogance, it’s the truth. She still doesn’t understand why Clint had spared her life eight months ago, but she’s grateful. If nothing else, the two of them — Hawkeye and the Black Widow — make an excellent team. 

“Hm.” Fury surveys her. “I guess the question now is, how well can you handle a solo mission?”

Her heart leaps, but she makes sure that nothing in her expression gives that away. A solo mission. Finally, the chance to prove herself to every bastard on the Council that they can trust her like Clint does, that she’s going to be the best goddamn agent this organization has ever seen. She meets Fury’s gaze with equal intensity. “I can handle anything.”

Fury nods. “Good,” he says seriously. “Then I’ve got one more question for you.”

Natasha leans forward.

“Do you like cats?”

Natasha blinks. “Cats,” she repeats.

“Yeah. What do you think about cats?”

This feels like some twisted version of a job interview — she’d heard about those in her training. She’d even watched a few herself so she could learn to act like a normal person, even if she was far from it. All that small talk, eye contact, perfect posture, and the million dollar question:  _ Why should we hire you? _

She’d been prepared for questions like that in their meeting today. She hadn’t expected a question like this.

“Cats,” she says again. She casts her mind back to the few cats she’d ever seen in person, and the even smaller number that she’d interacted with. She’d never killed one, even if some of the others from the Red Room delighted in it, but she doesn’t really have a concrete opinion on them. “They’re…nice,” she finally hazards. “Fuzzy. Cute.”

None of which she is, but she supposes that’s beside the point. It’s not like he needs her to impersonate one.

“Great,” Fury says. “I need you to babysit my friend’s alien kittens while he and his boyfriend are at work.”

Natasha stares. “…You’re joking.”

“Wish I was,” Fury says wearily. He slides a file across the desk to her, and she takes it gingerly, like it might be a bomb. There are a few pieces of paper inside; mostly photographs of an older dark-haired man in a black, red and white striped jumpsuit, his hands alight with something that looks like blue fire. The name on the file reads  _ COMMANDER MARVEL; _ that makes her blink again. This is the asset that hardly anyone here has actually seen, the one that does the impossible missions?

She flips past it. At the very back of the file, there is a grainy cell phone photo of five orange tabby cats: one older one, and four kittens with antennae. One of them is playing with a toy mouse, and has pinkish tentacles coming out of its mouth. Scrawled in permanent marker at the bottom of the photo are the words  _ Chewie, Clementine, Jonesy, Neutron, and Spot Mitchell-Kazansky, June ‘06. _

Alien cats. Huh.

“So,” Fury says. “You in?”

Natasha looks back up and sighs. This will be a fun one to explain to Clint and Coulson. “Yeah,” she says wryly. “Sure. How hard can it be?”

* * *

_ “Maverick.” _

“Ice, I told you, I don’t know anything!” Maverick looks up from his cup of coffee as Ice continues to pace around the kitchen, the kittens following him like a trail of ducklings. He gets Ice’s worry — they have to leave for work soon and the SHIELD-sanctioned catsitter isn’t here yet — but he really needs Ice to calm down. “All Fury said was he’s sending one of his best agents.”

_ “One  _ of?”

Maverick gestures vaguely. “One of his best agents, his best agent: what does it matter? If Fury picked them, they’ll be good.”

“They better be,” Ice mutters, but he looks slightly more relaxed. Maverick gets up and carefully steps over Jonesy to press a kiss to Ice’s cheek, and Ice turns to kiss him properly. He swears he can hear Clem and Neutron purring the Flerken equivalent of  _ Awwwww.  _

The doorbell rings. Both of their gazes snap to the door.

“I’ll get it,” Ice says, and heads through the house.

The kittens make to follow, but Maverick tells them no. “Wait a few minutes,” he says. “Grandpa Ice is going to bring you a new friend.”

All of them cock their heads to the sides in perfect unison. It’s a little creepy, but mostly cute. 

“So,” comes a voice from down the hall. A female voice; one part hesitant, two parts smooth and confident. “You’re the owner of the alien kittens.”

“Unfortunately,” Ice says back.

“Where did you even get an alien cat?”

He can practically see Ice’s dry stare. “How much time do you have?”

Ice re-enters the kitchen, accompanied by a red-headed woman in dark jeans, a hoodie, and a baseball cap. She looks young, maybe in her early twenties, but Maverick knows that if Fury picked her, she’s got balls of steel and the nerves to match. The kittens all stare at her with interest.

“Agent Romanoff,” says Ice. “This is my partner, Maverick Mitchell. Mav, Agent Natasha Romanoff.”

Agent Natasha Romanoff studies him. “So you’re Commander Marvel.”

“And you’re the Black Widow,” he says, just as seriously, and studies her right back. Then he grins. “Fury’s told me about you. All good things, I promise.”  _ Like how he’s considering you and Barton for that Avengers Initiative thing that I’ve been sworn to secrecy about. _

To his surprise, that elicits a small, pleased smile. A quicksilver one, but a smile nonetheless. “I wish I could say the same,” she says wryly. “But after reading your file, I can understand why.”

“Yeah, it’s a doozy.” At Ice’s slight glare — Maverick sends one right back — Maverick relents from the small talk. “Right.” He gets up and crosses the room to crouch beside Chewie. Natasha follows. “Agent Romanoff, this is Chewie. And  _ these,”  _ he scratches Spot’s head, “are Spot, Jonesy, Clem, and Neutron. Guys, this is Agent Romanoff. She’ll be watching you guys while me and Ice are at work.”

Natasha extends her hand to Chewie, who sniffs it. “It’s nice to meet you, Chewie.”

“Mew,” Chewie says, and licks Natasha’s fingertips. Ice and Maverick exchange a glance that holds a thousand words, namely: _ She’ll do. _

* * *

“So,” Natasha says. “Maverick said you guys need to eat everything because it helps your stomachs grow stronger.”

The kitten in front of her — Neutron, she thinks — blinks. Jonesy, Clem, and Spot all blink too. She’s pretty sure that means yes.

“So the problem is,” she says, “that you keep eating stuff that doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to твои деды — your grandfathers. You’ve got to stick to eating your own stuff, okay?”

Jonesy mews.

“Yeah, I know. You guys don’t really have a lot of stuff to call your own. Trust me, I get it.” Memories of the Red Room flicker forward, and she pushes them aside with effort. “So I think we should fix that. It’s,” she checks her watch, “nine o'clock now. There’s a junkyard not too far from here. Every day at nine we will go there for two hours, and you can practice regurgitating things and using your tentacles —  _ and,  _ if you’re very good, I will let you keep one tiny thing to take home with you. Then you can have your own collection of things that belong just to you, so you don’t have to steal your grandpa’s things, or practice blowing them up at night when they’re trying to sleep.” She pauses, making eye contact with each one of them. “How does that sound?”

They all meow in unison. Chewie looks impressed.

“Okay, кошечки. Let’s go.”

* * *

“Well,” Ice says cautiously. “The house hasn’t burned down. That’s a good sign, right?”

“A very good one,” Maverick says back. He tries for a smile, but inwardly he’s just as nervous. They left their cat and grandkittens at home all day with a trained assassin who can kill someone in nine ways with her pinky finger. Worst case scenario, all six of them are dead. Second worst case scenario, the kittens will regurgitate Natasha Romanoff in a few hours, and Maverick will call Fury to apologize. “C’mon. Let’s do it.”

Maverick steps in front of Ice and unlocks the door, stepping carefully into the front hall. Nothing is singed or burned here, not even the pair of slippers he’d accidentally left by the door. The kitchen is equally unharmed, though slightly messy. They make their way into the living room — and both of them come to a halt. 

There’s toy mice strewn all over the rug, along with a couple of hair ribbons, a faded bouncy ball, and a variety of other things that Maverick has never seen before, all organized into four distinct piles. Natasha Romanoff is sitting cross-legged on their couch, watching a  _ Jeopardy _ rerun. And sitting beside her, watching the show with equally rapt attention, are Clem, Spot, Neutron, and Jonesy.

“Be right back,” Natasha says, and waits for all of the baby Flerkens to meow back before she gets up and walks over to Ice and Maverick.

Maverick does his best to pick his jaw up from the floor. “Hi,” he says. “Uh, I hope they didn’t give you much trouble.”

“Not as much as I was expecting,” she says easily. “They’re good kittens. All of them.”

They all look back at the kittens on the couch, who are enraptured by the television. “Yeah,” Ice says, smiling sidelong at Maverick. “They are.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Listen, we really can’t thank you enough for watching them for us, Agent Romanoff.”

“No trouble,” Natasha says, a little awkward. Like she isn’t used to being thanked, or appreciated. Maverick thinks back to when he was her age, about a lifetime ago, and thinks that maybe he understands her more than he’d first thought. 

“Hey,” he says. “Stay for dinner tonight. Ice said he’ll make spaghetti, and his recipe’s to die for.”

Natasha blinks, gazing hesitantly between them. “I, uh…”

“Please,” Ice cuts in. “It’s the least we can do. And the kittens will never forgive us if you leave now.”

“I am coming back in the morning,” Natasha says dryly, but there’s a hint of that same small, pleased smile from earlier. “But…I guess I can leave off my report to Director Fury for later.”

Maverick grins. “He won’t mind,” he says. “He’s had Ice’s spaghetti too.”

Ice rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling too. “I’ll make it if you do the dishes,” he says, and when Maverick nods, Ice turns to face the kittens. “Hey guys,” he says. They all flop over to look at him. “Your new friend Agent Romanoff is going to stay for dinner.”

_ “Only _ if you promise to be nice and not eat the silverware,” Natasha cuts in. “What do you say?”

They all clamor to meow over each other at once, their antennae twitching happily. Chewie, who is lounging on the armrest of the nearby armchair, flicks her tail in agreement. 

_ Yeah,  _ Maverick thinks, and grins at Ice.  _ She’s good. _


End file.
